Book: Rest Harrow

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REST HARROW

A COMEDY OF RESOLUTION

BY

MAURICE HEWLETT

"Rest Harrow grows in any soil.... The seeds may be sown as soon as ripe
in warm, sheltered spots out of doors.... It is a British plant."

-WEATHERS

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK CRAIG




THI KANNICTHI




CONTENTS


BOOK I
OF THE NATURE OF A PROLOGUE, DEALING WITH A BRUISED PHILOSOPHER IN
RETIREMENT

BOOK II
SANCHIA AT WANLESS HALL

BOOK III
INTERLUDE OF THE RECLUSE PHILOSOPHER

BOOK IV
SANCHIA IN LONDON

BOOK V
OF THE NATURE OF AN EPILOGUE, DEALING WITH DESPOINA




ILLUSTRATIONS


Wrote deliberately to each of her sisters

The hum of cities, and buzz of dinner tables . . sound in his ears not at
all.

The housekeeper! This--person!

He had eloquence, he thought, as he watched her, he had won. But he was
anxious. She was such a deep one.

Ploughman in the vales would sometimes see his gaunt figure on the sky-
line.

"Well, Sanchia," he said, "here I am."

The great music went sobbing and chiding through her frame, like wounded
nightingales.

Senhouse came back to her bedside and put a little flower into her hand




[Illustration: Wrote deliberately to each of her sisters.]




BOOK I

OF THE NATURE OF A PROLOGUE, DEALING WITH A BRUISED PHILOSOPHER IN
RETIREMENT




I


An observant traveller, homing to England by the Ostend-Dover packet in
the April of some five years ago, relished the vagaries of a curious
couple who arrived by a later train, and proved to be both of his
acquaintance. He had happened to be early abroad, and saw them come on.
They were a lady of some personal attraction, comfortably furred, who,
descending from a first-class carriage, was met by a man from a third-
class, bare-headed, free in the neck, loosely clad in grey flannel
trousers which flapped about his thin legs in the sea-breeze, a white
sweater with a rolling collar, and a pair of sandals upon brown and sinewy
feet uncovered by socks: these two. The man's garniture was extraordinary,
but himself no less so. He had a lean and deeply bronzed face, hatchet-
shaped like a Hindoo's. You looked instinctively for rings in his ears.
His moustache was black and sinuous, outlining his mouth rather than
hiding it. His hair, densely black, was longish and perfectly straight.
His eyes were far-sighted and unblinking; he smiled always, but furtively,
as if the world at large amused him, but must never know it. He seemed to
observe everything, except the fact that everybody observed himself.

To have once seen such a man must have provided for his recollection; and
yet our traveller, who was young and debonnaire, though not so young as he
seemed, first recognised the lady. "Mrs. Germain, by George!" This to
himself, but aloud, "Now, where's she been all this time?" The frown which
began to settle about his discerning eyes speedily dissolved in wonder as
they encountered the strange creature in the lady's company. He stared, he
gaped, then slapped his thigh. "Jack Senhouse! That's the man. God of
battles, what a start! Now, what on earth is Jack Senhouse doing, playing
courier to Mrs. Germain?"

That was precisely the employment. His man had handed the lady out of her
compartment, entered it when she left it, and was possessing himself of
her littered vestiges while these speculations were afloat. Dressing-case,
tea-basket, umbrellas, rugs, and what not, he filled his arms with them,
handed them over to expectant porters, then smilingly showed their
proprietress the carriage ridded. He led the way to the steamer, deposited
his burdens and saw to the bestowal of others, fetched a chair, wrapped
her in rugs, found her book, indicated her whereabouts to a mariner in
case of need. All this leisurely done, in the way of a man who has
privilege and duty for his warrants. Enquiring then, with an engaging lift
of the eyebrows, whether she was perfectly comfortable, and receiving with
a pleasant nod her answering nod of thanks, he left her and returned to
the train. Tracked through the crowd, and easily by his height, bare head,
and leisurely motions, he was next seen shouldering a canvas bag on his
way back to the boat. Jack's belongings, his bag of tricks; Jack all over,
the same inexhaustible Jack! It was delightful to our traveller to find
Jack Senhouse thus verifying himself at every turn. He was for the
steerage, it appears--and of course he was!--where depressed foreigners
share with bicycles, motor cars, and newly boiled pigs the amenities of
economical travel. In this malodorous and slippery well his interested
friend saw him sit down upon his bundle, roll a cigarette, and fall into
easy conversation with an Italian voyager who, having shaved, was now
putting on a clean collar and a tartan necktie.

The traveller, Mr. William Chevenix, who had watched him so long, a well-
dressed and cheerful Englishman of some five-and-thirty summers, with
round eyes in a round and rosy face, now assuring himself that he would be
damned if he didn't have it out with the chap, descended the companion,
picked his way through the steerage, and approached the seated
philosopher. He saw that he was known, and immediately. Nothing escaped
Senhouse.

"How d'ye do, how d'ye do?" He held out his hand. Senhouse rose and
grasped it. The Italian took off his hat, and strolled away.

"I'm very well, thanks," he said. "Have you noticed those shores beyond
the canal? Samphire there just as we have it at home. Leagues of
samphire."

The younger man looked in the direction indicated cheerfully and blankly.
"'The samphire by the ocean's brim,'" he said lightly. "I attach no
importance to it whatever, but it's very like you to lift one into your
privacy at a moment's notice. I'm all for the formalities myself, so I
observe that I haven't seen you for years. Years! Not since--why, it must
be eighteen."

"It's precisely eight," said Senhouse, "and I've been abroad for four of
them."

His friend inspected him with candid interest. "At your old games, I take
it. You've filled England with hardy perennials and now you're starting on
Europe. Great field for you. You'll want a pretty big trowel, though. A
wheelbarrow might be handy, I should have said."

Senhouse fired. "I've been planting the Black Forest, you see. Great
games. They gave me a free hand, and ten thousand marks a year to spend.
I've done some rather showy things. Now I want to go to Tibet."

The other's attention had wandered. "I saw you come on board," he said. "I
watched you play the Squire of Dames to a rather pretty woman whom I
happen to know. She was a Mrs. Germain in those days."

"She still calls herself so," Senhouse said. He was staring straight
before him out to sea. The steamer was under way.

"Married a queer old file in Berkshire, who died worth a plum. Goodish
time ago. They called him Fowls, or Fowls of the Air. So she's still a
widow, eh?"

Senhouse nodded. "She's his widow." Then he asked, "You know her? You
might go and amuse her. I can't, because of these bonds." He exhibited his
sockless feet with a cheerful grin.

"Oh, I shall, you know," he was assured. "You're not dressy enough for
Mrs. Germain. She'd never stand it."

"She doesn't," said Senhouse. "She dislikes a fuss, and thinks me rather
remarkable."

"Well," said the other, "I think she's right. You always were a
conspicuous beggar. Now look at me. Think I'll do?"

Senhouse peered at him. "I think you are exactly what she wants just now,"
he said. "Go in and approve yourself, Chevenix."

Mr. Chevenix, the spick and span, had something on his mind, however,
which he did not know how to put. He continued to reflect upon Mrs.
Germain, but only by way of marking time. "She used to be very good fun in
my young days. And she made things spin in Berkshire, they tell me. I know
she did in London--while it lasted. What's she doing? There was a chap
called Duplessis, I remember."

"There still is," Senhouse said, but in such a manner as to chalk No
Thoroughfare across the field. Chevenix perceived this rather late in the
day, and ended his ruminations in a whistle. "She kept him dangling--" he
had begun. Instead of pursuing, he said abruptly, "I say, you remember
Sancie Percival, of course."

A change came over Senhouse's aspect which a close observer might have
noticed. He was very quiet, hardly moved; but he seemed to be listening
with all his senses, listening with every pore of his skin. "Yes," he
said, slowly. "Yes, I do; I'm not likely to forget her. She was my dearest
friend, and is so still, I hope."

The solemnity of his intended message clouded Mr. Chevenix's candid brow.
"She's still at Wanless, you know."

Senhouse set a watch upon himself. "No doubt she is," he said. "She's
well?"

The other probed him. "She's never made it up with her people. I think she
feels it nowadays."

Senhouse asked sharply, "Where's Ingram?"

"Ingram," said Chevenix, "is just off for a trip. He's to be abroad for a
year. India."

Senhouse shivered. "Alone?"

"Well, without her, anyhow. He always was a casual beggar, was Nevile." He
could see now that he was making a hit. "Got old Senhouse where he lives,"
he told himself, and then continued. "Fact is, I've been out with him as
far as Brindisi. He asked me to. I had nothing to do. But I want to see
Sancie Percival again. I was awfully fond of her--of the whole lot of
them." He reflected, as .a man might deliberate upon familiar things, and
discover them to be wonders. "What a family they were, by Jove! Five--of--
the--loveliest girls a man could meet with. Melusine, what a girl she was!
Married Tubby Scales--fat chap with a cigar. Vicky, now. How about Vicky?
She was my chum, you know. She's married, too. Chap called Sinclair--in
the Guides. But Sancie beat them all in her quiet way. A still water--
what?"

Senhouse, his chin clasped in his bony hands, contemplated the sea. His
face was drawn and stern. There was a queer twitching of the cheek-bones.
"Got him, by Jove!" said Mr. Chevenix to himself, and pushed on. "I say, I
wish you'd go and see her," he said.

Senhouse got up and leaned over the bulwarks. He was plainly disturbed.
Chevenix waited for him nervously, but got nothing.

Then he said, "The fact is, Senhouse, I think that you should go. You were
the best friend she ever had." Senhouse turned him then a tragic face.

"No, I wasn't," he said. "I think I was the worst."

Chevenix blinked. "I know what you mean. If it hadn't been for you and
your confounded theories, you imply that she--"

"I don't know--" Senhouse began. "God only knows what she might have done.
She was not of our sort, you know. I always said that she was unhuman."

"That's the last thing she was," said Chevenix, neatly. Senhouse scorned
him.

"You don't know anything about it," he said. "What are the doings of this
silly world, of our makeshift appearances, to the essentials? Antics--
filling up time! You speak as if she gave Ingram everything, and lost it.
She did, but he never knew it--so never had it. Ingram had what he was
fitted to receive. Her impulse, her impulsion were divine. She has lost
nothing--and he has gained nothing."

"If you talk philosophy I'm done," cried Mr. Chevenix. "Well, I say to
you, my boy, Go and see her. She's so far human that she's got a tongue,
and likes to wag it, I suppose. I don't say that there's trouble, and I
don't say there's not. But there are the makings of it. She's alone, and
may be moped. I don't know. You'd better judge for yourself."

Senhouse, trembling from his recent fire, turned away his face. "I don't
know that I dare. If she's unhappy, I shall be in the worst place I ever
was in my life. I don't know what I shall do."

"That's the first time you ever said that, I'll go bail," Chevenix
interrupted him. But Senhouse did not hear him.

"I did everything I could at the time. I nearly made her quarrel with me--
I dared do that. I went up to Wanless and saw Ingram. I hated the fellow,
I disapproved of him, feared him. He was the last man in the world I could
have tackled with a view to redemption. He was almost hopelessly bad,
according to my view of things. Fed by slaves from the cradle, hag-ridden
by his vices; a purple young bully, a product of filthy sloth, scabbed
with privilege. I saw just how things were. She pitied him, and thought it
was her business to save him. She did nobly. She gave herself for pity;
and if she mistook that for love, the splendid generosity of her is enough
to take the breath away. The world ought to have gone down on its knees to
her--but it picked up its skirts for fear she might touch them. What a
country! What a race! Well, feeling towards her as I did, and loathing
him, I urged him to marry her--to make her his property for life. Dead
against my conviction, mind you, but what else could I do? God help me, I
played the renegade to what I sincerely believed. I couldn't see her done
to death by a world of satyrs."

"Of course you couldn't, my dear man," cried Chevenix. "Girls of her sort
must be married, you know."

"I don't know anything of the kind," replied Senhouse, fiercely; "but I
loved her. You may put it that I funked. I did--and to no purpose."

"If you were to see her now," Chevenix put in, "you could do some good.
She'll be pretty lonely up there." Senhouse got up.

"I'll see her," he said. "Whatever happens."

"Right," said Chevenix. "That's a good man. That's what I wanted of you.
I'll tell her that you're coming. Now I'm going to do the civil to Mrs.
Germain."

Senhouse had turned away, and was leaning over the bulwarks, lost in his
thoughts. He remained there until the passage was over.

Mr. Chevenix, having approached the lady with all forms observed, made
himself happy in her company, as, indeed, he did in all. "Now this is very
jolly, Mrs. Germain, I must say. I'm a companionable beggar, I believe;
and here I was in a ship where I didn't know a living soul until I met you
and Senhouse. Didn't even know that you knew Senhouse. Queer fish, eh? Oh,
the queerest fish in the sea! But you know all that, of course."

Mrs. Germain, a brunette with the power of glowing, coloured becomingly,
and veiled her fine eyes with somewhat heavy and heavily-fringed eye-lids.
"Oh, yes," she said, "I have known him for a long time."

"Met him abroad, I suppose--tinkering round, as he does. The everlasting
loafer, artist, tinker, poet, gardener. 'Pon my soul, he's like the game
we used to do with cherry-stones round the pudding plate. Don't you know?
Soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, and all the rest. He's all those things,
and has two pair of bags to his name, and lives in a cart, and's a
gentleman. Not a doubt about that, mind you, Mrs. Germain."

She smiled upon him kindly. "None at all," she said. "I like him
extremely."

"You would, you know," said Chevenix, his tones rich in sympathy. "All
women do. You couldn't help it. You've got such a kind heart. All women
have. Now, I've known Senhouse himself five or six years, but I've known
about him for at least eight. I used to hear about him from morn to dewy
eve, once upon a time, from one--of--the--loveliest and most charming
girls you ever met in your life. Did you know her? A Miss Percival--
Sanchia Percival. We used to call her Sancie. Thought you might have met
her, perhaps. No? Well, this chap Senhouse would have gone through the
fire for her. He would have said his prayers to her. Did you ever see his
poems about her? My word! He published 'em after the row, you know. He as
good as identified her with--well, we won't mention names, Mrs. Germain,
but he identified her with a certain holy lady not a hundred miles from
the Kingdom of Heaven. Blasphemous old chap--he did, though."

Mrs. Germain, toying with her scent-bottle, was interested. "I never heard
him speak about a Miss Percival," she said. She used a careless tone, but
her flickering eyelids betrayed her.

"You wouldn't, you know," he told her with the same sympathetic
earnestness. "There was too much of a row. He was cut all to pieces. I
thought he'd go under; but he's not that sort. Who called somebody--some
political johnny--the Sea-green Incorruptible? Oh, ask me another! You
might call old Senhouse the Green-tea Irrepressible; for that was his
drink (to keep himself awake all night, writin' poems), and there never
was a cork that would hold him down--not even Sancie Percival. No, no, out
he must come--fizzling."

"I see," said Mrs. Germain, still looking at her fingers in her lap. "I'm
very much interested. You mean that he was very much--that he paid her a
great deal of attention?"

Chevenix stared roundly about him. "Attention! Oh, heavens! Why, three of
his letters to her would fill _The Times_ for a week--and he kept it up
for years! She used to get three a week--budgets! blue-books! For simple
years! Attentions!" He shook his head. "The word's no good. He paid nobody
anything at all when she was in the same county. He used to sit listening
to her thrilling the waves of air. He used to hear her voice in the wind--
and when it changed, he used to fire off his answers!"

Mrs. Germain laughed--whether at Chevenix or his preposterous hero is not
to be known. "You are rather absurd," she said. "Mr. Senhouse never gave
me the idea of that sort of person. Why did they never--?"

Chevenix narrowed his eyes to the merest slats. "_Marry?_" he said, in an
awed whisper. "Is that what you mean?"

Mrs. Germain showed him her soft brown orbs, which for two seasons had
been said to be the finest pair of dark eyes in London. "Yes," she said,
"I do mean that. How clever of you to guess!"

Chevenix bowed to her. "Not at all," he said. "I'm quite good at that kind
of thing. You have to be, if you knock about. Besides, that's the whole
point. Bless you! He would just as soon have married Diana of the
Ephesians. He said so. I heard him. He would have thought it an insult to
hint at it. Didn't I tell you that he was a poet?"

"Yes," the lady said quickly. "You did. But I suppose poets occasionally
marry."

"Not that sort," Chevenix pronounced, with a shake of the head. "At least,
they don't marry the right person. They never do. Or there are two or
three persons. Look at Shelley. Look at Dante. I happen to know all about
both of 'em. Senhouse drank 'em up--and gave 'em out like steam. He
thought no end of Dante and Shelley. As a matter of fact, he didn't
believe in marriage, as a game--as a kind of institution, you know. He
thought it devilish wrong--and said so--and that's where the trouble was.
Marry Sancie! I wish to heaven he had. There'd have been no trouble at
all. They were made for each other. She loved his fun--and was easy with
him, you see. She was queerish, too--a shy young bird; but she was quite
at home with him. No, no. The trouble really began with him putting her
out of conceit with marriage. And then she didn't care for him in that
sort of way, then. And then--well, the less said the better."

"Oh," said Mrs. Germain, absorbed by the devolutions of the tale. "Oh!"

"'Oh's the sort of expression one used at the time," said Chevenix.
"There wasn't much else to be said. It was a holy row." He mused, he
brooded, and said no more. Luckily for him, he discovered Dover at hand,
and escaped. Mrs. Germain was put into a first-class carriage by two
attendant squires, provided with tea and a foot-warmer; and then Chevenix
bowed himself away and Senhouse disappeared. She had a novel on her knees,
but read little. She looked out of window, frowning and biting her red
lip. When she reached Victoria she tightened both lips, and you saw that,
so compressed, they made a thin red line straight above a square chin. Her
charm and favour both lay, you then discovered, in expression.

Senhouse, hatless and loose-limbed, stood at the door to help her out. She
accepted his services, and was put into a cab.

"Where's he to take you?" he asked her pleasantly.

She said at once, "To Brown's Hotel." Then, before she got in, with a
hand, unperceived by the general, just touching his arm, "Jack, I want to
speak to you, but not to-night. Will you come in the morning, please? I am
rather tired, and shall dine early and go to bed. Is my maid here?" She
looked about. "Oh, I suppose she's seeing to the luggage. You might find
her, and tell her where to come to."

Senhouse smiled and nodded. "Certainly. All these things shall be done.
Anything else before you go off?"

She hesitated for a minute, then said, "Yes, there _is_ one more thing.
You mustn't come to Brown's like that. You must put on ordinary things."

He raised his eyebrows, then laughed--throwing his head up. "Wonderful
lady! Wherewithal shall I be clothed? Do you really think these things
matter?"

She was firm. "I really do. I hope you will be kind enough to--to--please
me."

He looked very kindly at her. "My dear," he said, "of course I shall. Be
quite easy about it." He held out his hand. "Good night, Mary."

She took it, but didn't meet his look. "Good night," she said, and drove
away without another signal.

Senhouse, shouldering his bundle, found the lady's maid, and gave her her
sailing orders. His manner to her was exactly that which he had shown to
the mistress, easy, simple, and good-humoured. Leaving her, he went a
leisurely way through the press, and took a tram-car from the corner of
Vauxhall Bridge Road in the direction of Battersea.



II


Senhouse, after a night of solitary musing upon certain waste places known
best to outlanders, walked up Saint James's Street at six o'clock in the
morning, talking lightly and fiercely to himself. A long life of
loneliness had given him that habit incurably. Discovering the hour by a
clock in Piccadilly, he realised that it was too early to wait upon Mrs.
Germain in Albemarle Street, so continued his way up the empty hill,
entered the Park, and flung himself upon the turf under the elms. Other
guests were harboured by that hospitable sward, shambling, downcast lice
of the town. These, having shuffled thither, dropped, huddled and slept.
His way was not theirs: to him the open space was his domain. He ranged
the streets, one saw, as if they had been the South Downs, with the long
stride and sensitive tread of a man who reckons with inequalities of
footing. The country and the town were earth alike, though now of
springing grass and now again of flagstones.

His face, after a night of fierce self-searching, looked its age, that of
a man past forty; his aspect upon affairs was no more a detached
observer's; his eyes were hard, his smile was bleak. Sodden misery,
stupor, and despair lay all about him, and would have drawn his pitying
comments if it had not been so with him that all his concern must be for
himself.

"She wants me, and I must go to her," was the burden of his thought; but,
like a recurring line in a poem, it concluded very diverse matter.

"I played the traitor to her; I could not wait--and yet I must have known.
I said to myself, It is enough to have known and loved her; watch her
happy, and thank God. That should have been enough for any man who had
ever seen the blue beam of her eyes shed in kindliness upon him; but I
grew blind and could not see. I lost my lamp and went astray. I ran about
asking one after another to stop the bleeding of my wound. God is good.
After eight years, _she wants me, and I must go to her._

"I love her, as I have always loved; for she is always there, and I have
come back. She can never change, though her beauty grow graver, and all
knowledge of the vile usage of the world have passed before her young
eyes. Artemis no more, for she has stooped to the lot of women; but still
invincibly pure, incapable of sin, though she know it all. It can never
touch her; she goes her way. She wears a blue gown now, not a white one.
Demeter, the sad, bountiful Mother she will be--yet the same woman, the
sweet and grave, the inflexible, the eternal. And, standing as she has
always stood, _she wants me, and I must go to her._

"I remember the wonder, I remember the morning glory of her first
appearing. The spell of the woods was upon her. Bare-headed, gowned in
white, she girt up her vesture and dipped her white limbs in the pool. I
went to her, all my worship in my face; I worked with her at her task.
Together we pulled the weed, we set the lilies free. High-minded as a
goddess, she revealed herself to me. I was the postulant, dumb before the
mysteries; I adored without a thought. I was nothing, could be nothing, to
her but her lover--and now _she wants me, and I must go to her._

"For two years I was close to her side--either I or my words never left
her. She became humble, suffered me to lead her, opened to me her mind,
shared with me her secret thoughts. I told her the truth; I hid nothing
from the first. From the first day she knew that I loved her. There was no
presumption in this--I asked nothing, expected nothing. I told her often
that I looked forward to her wedded state--and then it came, and I was not
ready for it as it came. Horrible thing, her nobility was her punishment.
She has suffered, she suffers; _she wants me, and I must go to her._

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